{"id":108017,"date":"2021-02-25T21:51:05","date_gmt":"2021-02-25T21:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/?p=108017"},"modified":"2021-02-25T21:51:05","modified_gmt":"2021-02-25T21:51:05","slug":"relativity-space-unveils-a-reusable-3d-printed-rocket-to-compete-with-spacexs-falcon-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/business\/relativity-space-unveils-a-reusable-3d-printed-rocket-to-compete-with-spacexs-falcon-9\/","title":{"rendered":"Relativity Space unveils a reusable, 3D-printed rocket to compete with SpaceX&#x27;s Falcon 9"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>3D-printing rocket builder Relativity Space is working on Terran R, a fully reusable launch vehicle that would be near the capabilities of SpaceX&#x27;s Falcon 9 rocket.<\/li>\n<li>Terran R is &quot;really an obvious evolution&quot; from the company&#x27;s Terran 1 rocket, Relativity CEO Tim Ellis told CNBC, the latter of which is scheduled to launch for the first time later this year.<\/li>\n<li>&quot;I&#x27;ve always been a huge fan of reusability. No matter how you look at it &#8230; making [a reusable rocket] has got to be part of that future,&quot; Ellis added.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Relativity Space, the 3D-printing rocket builder, is making another big bet: Developing a fully reusable rocket, designed to match the power and capability of SpaceX&#x27;s workhorse Falcon 9 rockets.<\/p>\n<p>Called Terran R, the reusable rocket is &quot;really an obvious evolution&quot; from the company&#x27;s Terran 1 rocket, Relativity CEO Tim Ellis told CNBC \u2013 the latter of which Relativity expects to launch for the first time later in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It&#x27;s the same architecture, the same propellant, the same factory, the same 3D printers, the same avionics and the same team,&quot; Ellis said.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#x27;ve always been a huge fan of reusability. No matter how you look at it \u2013 even with 3D printing, and dropping the cost, and [increasing the] automation of a launch vehicle \u2013 making it reusable has got to be part of that future,&quot; Ellis added.<\/p>\n<p>Terran R is the first of several new initiatives that Ellis expects Relativity to unveil in the year ahead, with the company having raised more than $680 million since its founding five years ago. Just like Terran 1, Relativity will build Terran R with more than 90% of the parts through additive manufacturing \u2013 utilizing the world&#x27;s largest 3D printers as what Ellis calls &quot;the factory of the future.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Relativity, valued at $2.3 billion, ranks as one of the most valuable private space companies in the world. Its investors include Tiger Global Management, Fidelity, Baillie Gifford, Mark Cuban and more.<\/p>\n<p>Ellis emphasized that \u2013 even with Terran R&#x27;s announcement \u2013 Relativity is &quot;very focused on getting Terran 1 to first launch,&quot; which he said is still on track to happen later this year.<\/p>\n<p>And the company plans to keep Terran 1 long term as Ellis believes &quot;it&#x27;s a great product.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We&#x27;re not pulling a &#x27;Falcon 1 to Falcon 9&#x27; change,&quot; Ellis said, noting how Elon Musk&#x27;s SpaceX originally was building and planning to operate a smaller rocket.<\/p>\n<h2>Taking on the dominant Falcon 9<\/h2>\n<p>Terran R represents an expansion of Relativity&#x27;s offerings in the launch marketplace.<\/p>\n<p>Terran 1 is priced at $12 million per launch and is designed to carry 1,250 kilograms to low Earth orbit. That puts Terran 1 in the middle of the U.S. launch market, in between\u00a0Rocket Lab&#x27;s Electron\u00a0and\u00a0SpaceX&#x27;s Falcon 9\u00a0in both price and capability.<\/p>\n<p>Ellis said Terran R will be capable of lifting nearly 20 times as much payload as Terran 1, with Relativity targeting a rocket capable of launching more than 20,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit. That would be near the 22,800 kilograms that SpaceX says its Falcon 9 rockets can launch.<\/p>\n<p>While Ellis declined to disclose what price per launch Relativity expects for Terran R, he said that Relativity plans to be competitive with other offerings. SpaceX advertises Falcon 9 rocket launches with a $62 million price tag, with Musk&#x27;s company saying each rocket costs about $28 million to launch.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We really were asked by the market to create [Terran R] and we&#x27;re currently talking with customers,&quot; Ellis said.<\/p>\n<p>Relativity has a pipeline worth several billion dollars of contracts &quot;in active dialogue&quot; for both its Terran 1 and Terran R rockets, Ellis said, with customer interest split evenly between the two vehicles. He noted that the Terran 1 contracts that Relativity has announced to date have binding launch service agreements, so customers are paying on deposits for the rockets.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;There are tons of customers, all getting funding and developing big plans, and that&#x27;s really driving the need for more launch capacity globally,&quot; Ellis said.<\/p>\n<p>Not only does Relativity&#x27;s CEO expect to be competitive in the marketplace, but he also believes there will be more spacecraft trying to launch than there are rides to orbit.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;There&#x27;s actually going to be a launch shortage, if you look at how many people are trying to launch payloads to space,&quot; Ellis said. &quot;Almost every model we&#x27;ve looked at, there need to be more launch vehicles to deploy even a fraction of the plans that people are talking about.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Ellis also touted Terran R&#x27;s reusability as further enhancing Relativity&#x27;s competitiveness.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I just don&#x27;t see a future where a fully reusable rocket doesn&#x27;t exist and doesn&#x27;t need to exist,&quot; Ellis said.<\/p>\n<p>He highlighted SpaceX&#x27;s work on reusability as informing Relativity&#x27;s approach to Terran R, which he expects will be &quot;fully reusable.&quot; SpaceX&#x27;s Falcon 9 rockets are partially reusable, in that the company lands the first stage (also known as the booster) and often recovers the rocket&#x27;s nosecone. But SpaceX does not recover Falcon 9&#x27;s second stages \u2013 a feat Relativity aims to pull off by 3D printing designs which &quot;wouldn&#x27;t be possible with traditional manufacturing,&quot; Ellis said.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We will be able to print far more exotic and traditionally difficult-to-manufacture materials that make both first- and second-stage reusability much better,&quot; Ellis said.<\/p>\n<h2>No factory changes required<\/h2>\n<p>Relativity&#x27;s focus on 3D printing means the company doesn&#x27;t have to change or add new equipment to its production line.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;The printers, straight up with software changes, will build Terran R,&quot; Ellis said.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It&#x27;s a completely different technology stack for aerospace,&quot; Ellis added. &quot;Every aerospace factory you walk into today is still building products with giant fixed tooling and a very complex supply chain and it takes many years to develop a new product. If you want to do slight tweaks and changes, you&#x27;ve got to rip out all of that and go all over again.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Relativity has been building Terran 1 with the expectation that Terran R was coming. <\/p>\n<p>Ellis noted that Terran 1 is fueled by liquid oxygen and liquid methane \u2013 propellants are the focal point of next-generation reusable rockets. Even the company&#x27;s testing facilities at NASA&#x27;s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi &quot;are already sized&quot; to test the larger engines needed for Terran R, he said.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Many of the pieces are quite similar architecturally, but the thing that&#x27;s wildly different is the fact that [Terran R] is fully reusable,&quot; Ellis said.<\/p>\n<h2>Engine tests started<\/h2>\n<p>Relativity has completed hundreds of tests on its Aeon 1 engines that will power Terran 1 \u2013 but Terran R will feature a &quot;new engine called Aeon R&quot; that the company has begun developing, Ellis said.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We&#x27;ve also tested the engine for the upper stage,&quot; Ellis said. &quot;It&#x27;s a copper chamber engine &#8230; and it&#x27;s actually now the same engine on the upper stage of Terran R as on Terran 1.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>The company expects to conduct &quot;mission duty cycle tests,&quot; also known as a full duration test, of the new more powerful engine in the coming days, Ellis said.<\/p>\n<p>Relativity plans to launch Terran R from Cape Canaveral in Florida, where the company previously secured a launch site for Terran 1.<\/p>\n<h2>More details to come<\/h2>\n<p>Although Ellis declined to talk specifically about his expectations for Terran R&#x27;s development timeline, he said the company is announcing it now because it&#x27;s begun building hardware and conducting tests.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I think there was only a matter of time that we were going to be able to keep it secret,&quot; Ellis said, noting that Relativity is &quot;now out in the market and selling&quot; Terran R launches.<\/p>\n<p>The company will reveal more details on the design and specifications of Terran R later this year. As for how Relativity plans to land its Terran R rockets, Ellis said his company will utilize &quot;maybe both&quot; concrete landing pads and drone ships, as SpaceX does.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, Ellis has a vision of 3D-printed reusable rockets as &quot;the inevitable technology we need to build humanity&#x27;s industrial base on Mars&quot; \u2013 a goal similar to Musk&#x27;s dream to &quot;make humanity a multiplanetary species&quot; by establishing settlements on the red planet. Ellis believes Relativity and SpaceX can be two companies leading a new era of exploration.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We need to inspire dozens to hundreds of companies to do this,&quot; he said.<\/p>\n<p><em>Subscribe to CNBC PRO<\/em><em> for exclusive insights and analysis, and live business day programming from around the world.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2021\/02\/25\/relativitys-reusable-terran-rocket-competitor-to-spacexs-falcon-9.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>3D-printing rocket builder Relativity Space is working on Terran R, a fully reusable launch vehicle that would be near the capabilities of SpaceX&#x27;s Falcon 9 [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":108016,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.7 - 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